French youths hail SW China's rural sports event, vitality

GUIYANG, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Having returned to France, 22-year-old Pierre Expert still felt the thrills that he experienced during a two-day visit to southwest China's Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, home to renowned rural sports events including Village Super League, or "Cun Chao" in Chinese, and the Village Basketball League, dubbed "Cun BA."

The French youngster posted a short video sharing his thoughts on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform, to record this unforgettable trip to rural China.

Around noon on Feb. 26, Guizhou's Village Super League Team defeated the French Youth Team with the score 5:4, putting an end to the first international friendship football match held in Rongjiang County, the birthplace of Village Super League.

The football match was held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, also part of diverse celebration activities during the China-France Year of Culture and Tourism.

Pierre Expert was among the 34 French visitors to the county.

Although the competition was held on a workday, it still attracted an audience of nearly 10,000 to the stadium. During the two breaks of the match, colorful cultural performances were also presented by locals and the French youth delegation.

"It was unforgettable!" said Hamza Belbachir, who scored a hat-trick in the match, adding that it was his first time playing in front of such a large crowd, and he was deeply touched by the heated football atmosphere of the scene.

Xiang Yanqiong, a Rongjiang native who is now married to a French, also took her younger son to the match. "I'm really happy. I support both teams and I hope there will be more and more China-France friendly football matches," said Xiang.

"It is only the beginning of our international football friendship matches held in Rongjiang. We will continue to host more international sports events this year, hoping to connect more countries and regions through football games and our ethnic cultures and thus promoting exchanges and communication between different cultures," said Xu Bo, head of Rongjiang County.

"'Cun Chao' is becoming more and more international," said Dong Yongheng, who won the Golden Boot title as the leading scorer in the 2023 Village Super League. He is also the captain of Guizhou's Village Super League Team.

Dong said that since last summer, the rural Village Super League has come into the limelight and attracted more and more foreign visitors and football players. "I believe more international Cun Chao events in the future will help our local players and citizens make more foreign friends and deepen our friendship with other countries," Dong added.

According to data provided by the Village Super League Office of Rongjiang County, since the Village Super League 2023 went viral online, Rongjiang has received more than 7.33 million tourists and raked in a total tourism revenue of over 8.1 billion yuan (about 1.14 billion U.S. dollars).

Pierre Expert, who had studied as an international exchange student at Beihang University in Beijing for six months, said that he is working hard to learn more about the Chinese culture. He hopes to work in China one day in a bid to further enhance the friendship between the two countries.